• Unpopular Opinions V5: "I still don't like Half Life 2."
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[QUOTE=Bathtub;49788370]Inglorious Basterds is Tarantinos best film Yes, I have seen Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs[/QUOTE] Jackie Brown.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;49789315]The problem is that the church in many religions want people to put their undying faith in God. People who teach god accidentally or purposefully end up becoming a part of that undying trust as they become the middle man. This also goes without saying, but believing in God is absolutely unscientific. To have a scientific mind and to believe in God is to make exceptions that would never be made for anything else, and to actually make those exceptions for anything else is to have an unscientific mind. Also, religion can also influence people with cognitive bias. Don't get me wrong - I don't care about religion as long as priorities are straight. Science should come first before God. When someone's operating on me, their priority should be the understanding of the human anatomy and not religious intuition [I]ever[/I]. Religion is not necessary in science and honestly doesn't belong. It causes more problems than it does good - for every Catholic-funded laboratory, there's a million more unaffiliated labs.[/QUOTE] I think god belongs to the realm that is literally outside of science and within metaphysics. Ultimately the reason for belief is much the same as why we believe in fictions such as law and nations. The belief that humans are equal is in itself an unscientific concept as much as belief in the view that humans are unequal. Even science itself is unverifiable, but we adhere to the model because it serves us extremely well. When it comes to understanding human nature, I think that religion often offers a better understanding than most secular philosophy does. God may or may not exist, and scientific methodology may be true or ultimately heavily flawed, but we believe in both nonetheless because they both seem to be working. Atheism is logical to follow if you want to not believe in one particular unverifiable thing out of the multitude of those unverifiable things we rely on everyday, but it offers little to most people, which is why we ultimately have religion.
[QUOTE=Sector 7;49789670]Of course there's evidence. 1. the universe exists "something made it" is one of many hypotheses which explain this phenomenon.[/QUOTE] Well no, that's jumping to conclusions.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;49789797]I think god belongs to the realm that is literally outside of science and within metaphysics. Ultimately the reason for belief is much the same as why we believe in fictions such as law and nations. The belief that humans are equal is in itself an unscientific concept as much as belief in the view that humans are unequal. Even science itself is unverifiable, but we adhere to the model because it serves us extremely well. When it comes to understanding human nature, I think that religion often offers a better understanding than most secular philosophy does. God may or may not exist, and scientific methodology may be true or ultimately heavily flawed, but we believe in both nonetheless because they both seem to be working. Atheism is logical to follow if you want to not believe in one particular unverifiable thing out of the multitude of those unverifiable things we rely on everyday, but it offers little to most people, which is why we ultimately have religion.[/QUOTE] Do you have evidence that God seems to be working, or is that cognitive bias? Before I continue, although you are already aware that I enjoy reading your posts on the matter, we are delving into a topic in which I tend to be very blunt with my explanations. This may come across as harsh, but they are honestly how I feel about society as a whole and I don't know how else to say it without it being potentially hurtful. It's why I don't tell everybody about it, really.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;49789843]Do you have evidence that God seems to be working, or is that cognitive bias?[/QUOTE] As much evidence as pretty much everything else which requires the same belief. Legal systems, states, capitalist economies, and the like require a degree of belief in them, but there are quite a lot of people who contest their usefulness and demand their abolition in much the same way that atheists are skeptical of the benefits of religion. But looking at the multitude of charitable organisations, the fact the church is the largest non state provider of healthcare, the support of education, the existence of universities and colleges established by the church, etc is probably good enough evidence to believe that religion has some good to it.
Legal systems are abstract concepts that organize the way we work, yes, but the concept of God surpasses that by being a deity that surpasses government. It's the top dog, and you aren't supposed to question the top dog. The legal system isn't metaphysically daunting - you can actually question the legal system, but God is perfect and created everything in his image. Why invalidate his text? Why question his example? Everything that surrounds God is then flawed because of affiliation, and because they have limitations. Birth control is a big no-no for no other purpose except for [I]God's word[/I], for example. What happens if you take birth control? You're on the fast tract to hell, but perhaps if you pray a little harder and get invested a little more into Catholicism, maybe God will just forget about that whole thing. I've recently been reading about Transcendental Meditation, and I've really been questioning what the real difference between major religion and cults are. [I]Transcendental Meditation just wants to teach you how to relax, man.[/I] But it doesn't. [I]Scientology just wants to do a personality test.[/I] But it doesn't. [I]Catholicism just wants to give some charity.[/I] But not without the extravagant architecture, anti-abortion agenda, beef with other religions (refer to their shitty relations with Islam, for example), personal military, disbelief in the separation of Church and state [B]and science[/B], anti-homosexual agenda, and even condoms. I totally just read this off of the Wikipedia page, but it's a starting point to understanding how even though the Catholic church has some great stuff like charity, it's buried in muck and slime. It carries the same problems of the other religions and cults of over-complicating the rest of the world in politics and science with a contrived morality that I seriously have gripes with. And the problem is, I could bring all of these up and talk in depth about them, but would you be willing to consider the scale of those things? Will it ever pass your threshold of what ultimately makes the church better than it is awful? I didn't even discuss the politics of the religious figures that encourages the same mentality of the awful "kings of God" that plagued so much of the world's history.
[QUOTE=proch;49789807]Well no, that's jumping to conclusions.[/QUOTE] It may be an incredibly weak hypothesis, but it is still a valid idea. There are other minutiae that a person could use to build evidence for it, but I digress. The real issue is that it is an answer to a question which may simply never be answerable, scientifically speaking. It may be literally impossible to determine the nature of existence, and in this area religious beliefs often provide material that is meaningful to our lives.
It's my sincere belief that those things need to disassociate from the church as soon as possible. It'll be better for them, it'll be better for everyone, and we can carry on without the weight of religion. The religious part is useless and does nothing for the other parts instead of enforce a standard that is "unquestionable". It's nonsense. [editline]22nd February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Sector 7;49789956]It may be an incredibly weak hypothesis, but it is still a valid idea. There are other minutiae that a person could use to build evidence for it, but I digress. The real issue is that it is an answer to a question which may simply never be answerable, scientifically speaking. It may be literally impossible to determine the nature of existence, and in this area religious beliefs often provide material that is meaningful to our lives.[/QUOTE] So do pink elephants exist? Why does it matter if there's a God or not? What does the "answer" that will never be obtained change about our universe? Roughly paraphrased from Douglas Adams: you don't have to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden to believe it's beautiful.
FireWatch has a good ending.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;49789962]So do pink elephants exist? Why does it matter if there's a God or not?[/QUOTE] The true, unknowable nature of reality is arbitrary - but what we believe is not. People are propelled in life by all kinds of missions; a lot of human history has been written in the name of these esoteric but incredibly interesting cosmic narratives that we've created for ourselves. Religion and philosophy are just as pure and important as art or emotion or anything.
Alright, so if someone says they were to believe that black people were inferior to whites, would that be a "pure and important" endeavor? If not, why would you say that it isn't when you say that God is? And, if we were going to say that God is an important endeavor, people have used and will use God to justify racism even in the face of scientific disagreement. Also, racism has also been seen to influence science throughout history, creating pseudo-scientific findings because of cognitive bias.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;49790059]Alright, so if someone says they were to believe that black people were inferior to whites, would that be a "pure and important" endeavor? If not, why would you say that it isn't when you say that God is? And, if we were going to say that God is an important endeavor, people have used and will use God to justify racism even in the face of scientific disagreement. Also, racism has also been seen to influence science throughout history, creating pseudo-scientific findings because of cognitive bias.[/QUOTE] Jesus, you just took the quality of this discussion down by ten notches. This argument is a mess; religion is not racism and your comparison of them is incredibly fallacious. Racism and religion are both ideas, and people use ideas to interpret reality. That is true. Have you considered that your fervent adherence to the scientific process is also an idea? Science has no intrinsic value.
I think we just kinda go away if we die. Tough tits i guess. It's not like you'll care when you're dead.
[QUOTE=proch;49790111]I think we just kinda go away if we die. Tough tits i guess. It's not like you'll care when you're dead.[/QUOTE] You will never be truly dead until the last person who remembers you dies.
[QUOTE=Sector 7;49790077]Jesus, you just took the quality of this discussion down by ten notches. This argument is a mess; religion is not racism and your comparison of them is incredibly fallacious.[/QUOTE] Why? They are both beliefs of passion that are "pure and important" to people. How about the belief that vaccines cause autism? How about the belief that the earth is flat? How about the belief in all of the Roman and Greek Gods that everyone this is "absolutely ridiculous" when juxtaposed with Jesus Christ for some reason? The belief in a God does not make sense because there is no evidence that God exists except for seriously flawed texts created be unscientific minds, much like the belief that autism is caused by vaccines. The belief in a God enables people to use this "unquestionable" text to justify racism because of stuff like the "Mark of Cain". Sure, it can do some great stuff. Transcendental Meditation and Scientology can technically do good stuff. But they also do a lot of awful stuff too, and the more we try to block out the things that challenge us the more we are suspect to gradually worsening beliefs that preach hate and halt progress, much like plenty of religions did while colonizing Africa and the United States. We were doing them a favor, after all, by introducing them into the loving embrace of religion and mortality rates. This continued spread of religion is not good. It teaches people to suspend their disbelief to believe in something illogical. I would speak against that if it were [I]anything[/I], not just religion. I see believing in God as no different as believing that vaccines cause autism. I'm vehemently against both, but that doesn't mean I'm against the people that subscribe to those views. I see it as a dent in their hopefully otherwise respectable armor. I see it as a potential sign of manipulation and brainwashing, especially in the case of my cousin who has taken on Mormonism to cope with death and the awful reality of his mother and life. Religion also props people up into believing that there has to be more to reality - that reality is not enough - that reality is not beautiful. That there has to be something after this. That reality is depressing. People who don't believe in religion are depressed and lost. [I]Why would they ever be satisfied with reality? What's stopping them from shooting up malls and raping women?[/I] (That's not a joke by the way, I've heard [I]plenty[/I] of religious people ask me this.) Shit like that makes me believe that religion turns people into automatons (at a varying degree) that are less willing to embrace reality and more willing to try and escape from it. It gets even worse when you see how leaving Mormonism means leaving your family and friends. I've seen it happen. If you let go of one, you have to let go of a lot more than just the religion. You have a lot of pressure to stay in line. And if you stay in line, you get the benefits of cheeriness as you get put into a repetitive loop of feeling good every Sunday with cheery music and cheery friends that are happy to see you there, generally before tithing to ensure you've let go enough to not care about that dollar past the excitement of donating... What makes that different than a cult? Scientology goes lengths to make you fear leaving the church while also convincing you that staying in will make you better than ever. At the same time, leaving their church means leaving all of their friends that will shun you in a heart beat and teach others to hate you. So you convince yourself that things are good because you've taught yourself to not be independent, you've taught yourself to value other people's opinions, you've taught yourself that you should hate yourself and that you should redeem yourself through the church, you've taught yourself the new drug that will make you feel good, and you've taught yourself that reality isn't good enough. But there's science. And there's charity. And there's the good vibes that make even the most troubled prisoners feel at home. I won't deny these things. But as someone who was previously troubled with religion and re-established himself with atheism, I can tell you that it's not the only way, and often times it's not the correct way. The only way my uncle can forgive himself for his drug addictions and familial abuse is through the Lord, and that to me shows he hasn't forgiven himself. That shows me he can't accept reality. And this is very apparent now more than ever because his life has become 100% God. It's scary. [editline]22nd February 2016[/editline] Sobotnik seems like a good guy. He seems very genuine and balanced (and it is my personal opinion that I've never seem him be otherwise). My only hang-up with him is that he has allowed himself to believe in something that doesn't make sense. Faith is nothing more than blind loyalty based on illogical behaviors. Believing in God is not something that could ever be proven or even inferred from reality, and we are all human. He does not possess and abilities that I do not have. I have never seen or heard God, and I would imagine that doing so requires suspending disbelief. Suspending disbelief is not good. The moment you shut your brain off is the moment you can allow indoctrination. And everything he mentioned in favor of the church is not unobtainable in a secular world, it's just that atheists are smaller in number. With that said, my mother is a biologist that regularly feeds the homeless. My brother is a soldier who is fighting for our country. (He often gets questioned or harassed for being atheist, by the way.) As much as he and I will always defend other people's right to be religious and defend others against awful discrimination, I do not believe that right should ever be used. Still, people do it, so I can't stop them, so my intentions for the rest of my life has been to ween people off of it so that it stays within the home and not pervasive in the workplace or in legality. Whether it's possible, I'm not sure, but it is a goal nonetheless. If I were to choose what kind of a religious person a person should talk to when it comes to religion, I believe that I'd want them to refer to Sobotnik because he seems the most fair about it. [editline]22nd February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Sector 7;49790077]Have you considered that your fervent adherence to the scientific process is also an idea? Science has no intrinsic value.[/QUOTE] And yes, I have. I side with Immanuel Kant that the only reason why science and reality exists is because it is convenient. Science is merely a measure of what we have observed and what we think is going to happen - it is our reconstruction of what we perceive reality's logic to be. There's no actual rule to reality that says every time I drop an apple it will hit the ground, it's just that we have never observed anything else under the same conditions. Now, on that note, under no conditions have we observed God.
I hate the most part of reddit community.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;49790157]Sobotnik seems like a good guy. He seems very genuine and balanced (and it is my personal opinion that I've never seem him be otherwise). My only hang-up with him is that he has allowed himself to believe in something that doesn't make sense. Faith is nothing more than blind loyalty based on illogical behaviors. Believing in God is not something that could ever be proven or even inferred from reality, and we are all human. He does not possess and abilities that I do not have. I have never seen or heard God, and I would imagine that doing so requires suspending disbelief. Suspending disbelief is not good. The moment you shut your brain off is the moment you can allow indoctrination. And everything he mentioned in favor of the church is not unobtainable in a secular world, it's just that atheists are smaller in number. With that said, my mother is a biologist that regularly feeds the homeless. My brother is a soldier who is fighting for our country. (He often gets questioned or harassed for being atheist, by the way.) As much as he and I will always defend other people's right to be religious and defend others against awful discrimination, I do not believe that right should ever be used. Still, people do it, so I can't stop them, so my intentions for the rest of my life has been to ween people off of it so that it stays within the home and not pervasive in the workplace or in legality. Whether it's possible, I'm not sure, but it is a goal nonetheless. If I were to choose what kind of a religious person a person should talk to when it comes to religion, I believe that I'd want them to refer to Sobotnik because he seems the most fair about it.[/QUOTE] The ironic thing is that it was mostly due to the efforts of an atheist (who suggested I try Catholicism), a science fiction book, and the philosophy of Bertrand Russell that changed my mind on religion and stopped me being an atheist (as until a few weeks ago I had been one for at least a decade). Catholicism seems like the thinking mans religion - with arguably some of the best literature and philosophy. I mean Science and Religion happily coexisted for about eight centuries before people in the 19th century began to promote the "conflict theory" that there is some vast and unbridgeable gulf between both things. Catholic philosophy and the Scientific Method share a common origin and have had a lot of thought put into them.
I don't think I could be less interested in the Warhammer 40k universe/fandom(?), partially because when I see it referenced it's 90% in-jokes.
I'm tempted to buy Fallout 4 PRECISELY because it's less of a RPG and more a shooter-RPG hybrid on the same vein as Mass Effect
[QUOTE=EliaMoroes;49792480]I'm tempted to buy Fallout 4 PRECISELY because it's less of a RPG and more a shooter-RPG hybrid on the same vein as Mass Effect[/QUOTE]All the things that are great about Mass Effect are watered down or nonexistent in Fallout 4. It's still worth playing but maybe on sale later on.
[QUOTE=AtomicSans;49792629]All the things that are great about Mass Effect are watered down or nonexistent in Fallout 4. It's still worth playing but maybe on sale later on.[/QUOTE] Oh for fuck's sake, is it THAT bad?
[QUOTE=EliaMoroes;49792634]Oh for fuck's sake, is it THAT bad?[/QUOTE]It's not awful, but if you're expecting amazing characters, a compelling storyline, or an interesting world, well. I'd play something else. [editline]22nd February 2016[/editline] Conversation system is godawful too, and I don't even particularly like Mass Effect's.
it's decent for what it is, if you're hoping for an intricate role playing experience you best look elsewhere.
[QUOTE=AtomicSans;49792642]It's not awful, but if you're expecting amazing characters, a compelling storyline, or [B]an interesting world,[/B] well. I'd play something else. [editline]22nd February 2016[/editline] Conversation system is godawful too, and I don't even particularly like Mass Effect's.[/QUOTE] The Fallout universe is plenty interesting, I hope you mean that the actual explorable game world is underwhelming because the post apocalypse retro futurism is still an awesome theme
Fallout 4 is Fallout 3 but improved in pretty much every way.
I don't Like GradeAUnderA.
[QUOTE=Starlight 456;49793315]The Fallout universe is plenty interesting, I hope you mean that the actual explorable game world is underwhelming because the post apocalypse retro futurism is still an awesome theme[/QUOTE]I love the Fallout universe, my avatar is proof. But I don't think Fallout 4 does anything interesting with it in practice.
Night at the Museum was just awful.
Fallout 1 was the best Fallout game
For the life of me, I actually love this new wave of weird ass electronic music.
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